April 22, 2010

Just a reminder to all my readers - not that you need it - that the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books rolls into town this weekend. I'll be onsite to bring you some coverage, and you can check out the full schedule of events here.

May 01, 2007

Many, many thanks to Shauna McKenna for providing the following on-the-spot reports from last weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival Books.

The Future of Publishing

Moderator: James Atlas, president of Atlas Books and founding editor of the Lipper/Viking Penguin Lives Series Panelists: Georges Borchardt: Co-founder and president of Georges Borchardt, Inc., a literary agency representing over 200 distinguished English-language writers. Sara Nelson: Editor-in-Chief of Publishers Weekly and author of the memoir So Many Books, So Little Time. Dana Gioia: Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Book Award winning poet. Charlie Winton: Chairman and CEO, Avalon Books

To begin, Atlas ticked off a list of the generally cited signs that the horsemen of the publishing apocalypse are on the way (cue Ride of the Valkyries); evolving technology, the squeeze of book review sections in even the most prominent newspapers, the viability of conventional distributors, etc. etc. Each panelist delivered his or her prognosis, with a general consensus that the way literary content is packaged and sold to readers needs to keep up with technology.

BORCHARDT: “The good old days were not all that good.” With wit and charm, Borchardt put the current crises of literary publishing in the larger context of a business that has never been particularly lucrative. A sign of hope is that international publishing has skyrocketed, but a sign of trouble is the low interest in books of young people.

NELSON: Claims that in spite of their apparently diminishing relevance, books remain central to how we think and relate to each other as a culture. Also noted the “conglomeratization” of the publishing business, with its attendant increase in expectations for a publisher’s rate of return.

GIOIA: Discussed results of the NEA’s “Reading at Risk” report, which evidences significant decrease in the numbers of Americans reading books. Feels that books are almost invisible in contemporary culture. Enumerated the competitors that the pursuit of reading faces, and warned that the “silent, measured critical response” to reading could be lost. Got on his fiery steed and challenged a television to a joust.

WINTON: The number of midsize publishers is decreasing, but the big technology companies are developing ways to sell content direct to consumer, which will then make them big players. Internet has upended the way books are sold via massively branching networks and, of course, Amazon. Winton seemed the most sanguine about how evolving technologies can be an agent of change in the business of publishing and deeper literacy, not necessarily destruction.

Q&A Highlight: Questioner suggested that the publishing industry is too civil, maybe people would care more about book review sections if there was a little heat, a little snark, some sizzle. In the panel’s only nod to the literary blogosphere, Nelson pointed out all that snark and nastiness is right there in the blogs. Niiiice. (See! Just like that.) She elaborated that it’s unwise to discount bloggers or pop culture reviewers, because the populist media is the voice of the target audience.

After threatening to deliver a lecture on barium in deference to the oversized periodic table behind the panelists, Goldberg led the group in a spirited conversation about whether the democratization of literary criticism is a bad thing.

Andrew Keen: It’s a bad thing to get people feeling like they’re entitled to free stuff.

Everyone Else: Andrew Keen! You so crazy!

Okay, there was a lot more to it than that. But there was no doubt that the group had its Simon Cowell, replete with accent and an air of vague irritation bordering on disdain. Ron Hogan mentioned early on the value of bloggers forcing traditional media outlets to put their game faces on, and that’s exactly what Keen required of the bloggers.

Keen’s overriding concern was with the absence of a sustainable business model in the blogosphere, and the problems inevitable for institutional media once the audience gets hooked on free content. As a corollary, when the institutions falter, the superiority that Keen claims for professionalism disintegrates. He claimed that a form of expression that anyone can do is so easily imitable that the risks of corporate corruption and abuse are huge, and the reader is vulnerable not only to some weak-ass literary criticism but out-and-out fraud.

Everyone Else: Booooo!

Highlights for me:

1. Hogan drew the distinction between a book enthusiast and a book reviewer, and when asked how the audience is supposed to recognize the quality criticism amidst the dreck, responded that we too often undervalue an individual’s bullshit detector.

2. Kellogg described the conversational nature of blogging, which adds a new dimension to criticism heretofore left to the dust-gathering correspondence of Bunny Wilson and his crew. (I’m paraphrasing.)

3. Hogan’s candor about the benefits for an individual writer in creating a readership online, even if that labor is unpaid at the outset. The many successes of LA’s own Elegant One and Maud Newton were cited as shimmering examples.

4. Kellogg begrudgingly admitting the relevance of business models, and defending the current lack of revenue in the blogosphere by saying there’s a “jungle” of business models being tried, and it’ll take time and patience while the chaos sorts itself out.

5. Goldberg’s charisma (TEV Note: Oh God, don't encourage the man.) and persistent wise-assedness, Kellogg rolling her eyes openly half the time Keen talked, Keen being generally a good sport about being the designated foil.

Shauna’s major WTF moment:

When a questioner asked the panelists if they thought a distribution model like E-music might work for literary content, Goldberg responded that there isn’t really actual content on the internet, and all the other panelists agreed that they don’t really like to read things on a computer.

And then they sat uncomfortably and realized what they were saying, and Ron Hogan nicely backpedaled and explained that it’s an issue with the technology for e-reading not being there yet as compared to iPods, and of course many literary journals have online components, etc. etc. Which was a nice save, but still, that collective shrug over the question of there being actual things to read online made my former online editor’s soul hurt just a little.

Additional LATFOB coverage can be found about town at BookFox, Pinky's, and more. Shauna McKenna is a fiction writer, essayist, and occasional literary shindig coordinator. She relocated to Los Angeles last October.

April 30, 2006

Lots of running around this warm and sunny Sunday. Worthy panels all over the place and, typically, at opposite ends of the campus, hence a fair bit of running around. First stop was The Next Big Thing Panel, ironically named in light of recent publishing developments. Noted briefly:

Moderator begins talking about publishing’s following of the Hollywood template of the quest for blockbusters, and immediately references recent literary scandals. These panelists, he suggests, reflect a more creative, independent look at how to make publishing choices.

Somewhat staggering was the inclusion of the Whites, who seem like nice enough folks but a cursory examination of the home page for their company Sunswept Press suggests an outfit that’s barely a notch above self-publishing. (Two of the three books noted are by the Whites.) They scarcely belong on a panel with the likes of Akashic and Avalon. Predictably, the highlights of this discussion were the comments from Temple and Winton, which I focus on here.

JT: Akashic publishes 24 books a year, mostly fiction, some political non-fiction. Started in 1997, no background in publishing prior, was a rock musician. Published first books on a whim and loved it. Exciting time to be a publisher. Thinks the gloom in publishing traces back to the gambling approach of corporate publishing, the knock one book out of the park approach. Akashic keeps overhead down so a book that sells a few thousand copies represents a success. Very few books sell more than several thousand copies, and so the blockbuster mentality makes failures of literature.

CW: Avalon Publishing Group has offices in NYC and SF. Seven imprints, publish a variety of books, novels, travel, biographies, works with the Nation. Amazon, B&N and Borders constitute 50% of the market. Lots of big corporations filling the field, have to be focused on having an upper end of your list, having a title that people are going to get excited about. Can’t spend multimillions on a book but will spend six figures on a project that will sell currently and for a long time. …

JT: Discusses taking on Marlon James’ novel, rejected by agents as too dark, too afraid to take it on. He saw it all on the page and ran with it, resulting in great NYT review, LAT Award finalist, example of the joy of publishing and what inspires him. Discusses a lunch with Ron Kovic and learned that Born on the Fourth of July had gone out of print. Kovic got the rights back and Akashic took it on and sold thousands and thousands of copies.

Afterwards, I made a brief detour to check out the Sports Writers Panel to hear Martin Dugard talk about his book Chasing Lance. (Laila’s verdict when I told her where I was headed: “Geek.”) And although it’s true that cycling books are a bit outside of my literary brief, I was curious to find out about Dugard’s experiences with the Tour, even as I found the book itself a bit wanting. (The book is strong on the technical aspects of the Tour and its cultural role in French life but my main criticism centers on Dugard’s efforts to create drama in what was essentially an utterly drama-less Tour. The attempts feel even more melodramatic when reading in hindsight and with an understanding of the 2005 Tour.) In my opinion, the great Tour de France book still awaits its definitive author. Nevertheless, this man was out there in France, following the event I’ve dreamed about, so I came to hear what he had to say. Notable excepts herewith:

MD: Some resistance to writing another Lance book from the publishers, so he worked it in with a pitch for another book his publisher wanted. Felt this was a book he really had to write, even as it seemed impossible to get Lance’s involvement given the demands on his time. … People liken his meeting Lance to meeting Christ … When they become a symbol of hope, as Lance has, they come under scrutiny that used to be reserved for Bono … It has to be tough for an up and coming athlete to aspire to being a hero these days because heroes have to be squeaky clean. But they’re just athletes. But I like Lance, though not always. He can be prickly. If you inflame him in an interview, you can swear he wants to tear your larynx out. I know his faults, I know his weaknesses. But I have never been as inspired as by watching Lance. Watching him bike up a mountain makes me want to be better. … On doping: I want to know, I’m curious. First thing writers ask him is “So what happened to Lance and Sheryl?” My standard answer is “He was a bigger star than her.” But there’s a lot of stuff around the Lance thing … I do and I don’t want to know about it … I know of instances, I know of stories but do I want to do some investigation of drug use? No. His career is over, the French are trying to railroad him. If something comes up later, maybe. You want to cover them as an athlete but you’re hesitant to reveal too much as a person. I put myself in their shoes. Would I want someone going through my trash? Printing rumors about me? (He’s asked where you draw the line, and whether doping is part of his public life.) There are scurrilous claims out there. When it comes to things like doping, we’re going to find out a lot of things in 10-15 years. And then we can pursue that story. Big press conference at second to last stage of the Tour, hundreds of journalist, packed into a room. After an hour conference, all the journalists took off their credential tags and asked him to sign them – even the French journalists. It’s easier to write about someone who’s no longer alive … writing about a guy like Lance, there’s this attendant baggage that makes it difficult. Title comes from the fact that there are 4000 journalists at the Tour every day, all of whom want one-on-one with Lance. Had been trying to get Lance one-on-one since July 1st. Lance called him on Sept. 23 as Dugard was driving down the 405. Dugard pulled over, got his notebook out and had the long-awaited conversation, which he found a great validation, even as he confesses that the need for validation troubled him. Lance paid him a backhanded compliment … he likes the book which is nice, and it will be in an Espy gift basket … but it still worries him that this makes him feel good.

Our final stop was a brief glimpse at the LA Lit panel, a glimpse made even briefer by my expiring laptop battery. The panel consisted of Janet Fitch (moderator), and Chris Abani, Steve Erickson, Michelle Huneven, and Jim Krusoe.

Jim Krusoe asks the question I’ve been asking – Do writers in Pennsylvania sit around in coffee shops talking about Pennsylvania literature?

CA: References things back to Hollywood’s dominance which can overshadow LA’s rich literary history.

SE: Metaphorically and geographically, LA is as far as we can go. We fret about how the world is going to end here but we’re very proprietary about that, too. Something about that conceit appeals to us, we’d find it galling to suggest the world might end somewhere else.

MH: Los Angeles used to be famous for chewing up the literary writer. But now there are a lot of literary writers in LA and it’s become just another place to write, even as we’re trying to say it is possible to write here in the sunshine amid the swimming pools.

JK: I asked it, I’m not supposed to answer it. And I actually thought this was a panel about California writing. Los Angeles and NY are the only two cities in the country that generate myth, the two larger than life cities. It’s interesting and intimidating as a writer.

JF: First time an overview of the LA art scene has been seen anywhere is on display in Paris, which she recently saw. Had never seen it as one large story. Does there seem to be more of an interested in the art of LA now?

CA: There are whole parts of Los Angeles that never get talked about. When I arrived here it became Lagos. Graceland would not have been written if I hadn’t been living in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a complete city of invention, exists purely by the will of the people who live here. Discusses that although LA is multicultural, it’s also very segregated, but the segregation creates rough edges that make it interesting. It’s the only city where the natives are invisible. You come here and you make it your home.

SE: Born and raised here. Born in the Valley at a time when it bore a strong resemblance to the Valley that you see in Chinatown, all orchards. I can remember orchards and ranches. In the 60s between 62 and 67 there was this mega-lurch from a very rural valley and a bypassed suburbia and it moved into a mega suburbia. Which seemed completely normal to me at the time.

Which is precisely when my battery gave up the ghost. Will try to cobble up some additional recollections on the panel before the day ends.

My own big question for the organizers – where is your panel on book blogging? That’s the second year in a row the role of book blogs have been utterly ignored, whereas BEA began discussing blogs two full Expos ago. Hope that will be remedied by next year.

I arrived late, scrambled for my seat and missed some of the opening remarks – Laila shook her head in bemusement at my perpetual disarray. Herewith, the notes from the discussion, which was considerably more interesting than yesterday’s First Fiction panel.

Panelists begin by describing the earliest works that inspired them to write. James references Salman Rushdie. Laila discusses the question of language, of the baggage that comes with a colonial education as she sought her voice. Sharp thinks that material helps define voice. Sharp tells anecdote about Ann Beattie, in which she was rejected from her class for essentially writing Ann Beattie imitations. Fugard references growing up “in a house of writers … language was a part of my experience … words were delicious things in my house.” Found her voice by writing was difficult, the things she was scared to write about.

Rozzo is an intelligent moderator who displays familiarity with the works at hand.

Fugard tells anecdote about cracking a problem character, turning her from Eva to Evan and then breaking through.

Rozzo asks the dreaded – is an MFA necessary – question.

MJ: I’m working backwards … wrote the book then went to get the MFA … many criticisms are valid … Schools which shall remain nameless produce fiction all of the same kind … on the other hand, at my program, guys said Mailer and Hemingway didn’t get an MFA. Teacher responded Hemingway went to the school of Stein and Mailer went to the school of Perkins. All of which was a creative writing class. I’ve met a couple of editors and they’re not quite bookish … That kind of nurturing environment is not going to exist in the industry. Solid critical thinking that will make a difference can be found in MFA world.

LL: I don’t have an MFA, I don’t plan on getting one … limited use … can teach how to write but can’t teach you how to have something interesting to say … not going to help you write a book that will be worthwhile. That has to come from you, from the practice, from the habit of fiction.

AS: Benefit is friends who become readers for the rest of your life.

LF: Don’t have an MFA, sometimes intimidated by people who do but went to a lot of writing conferences. They were stunning for me, two weeks being immersed, a couple of writers who worked with me who were so encouraging and supporting, I really recommend the writing conferences.

LL: Underscores problem of a workshop where people are writing wildly varying kinds of work but are in a position to provide criticism.

MJ: Sometimes can be a bunch of people who are not quite there yet trying to give advice … a slight cluelessness. Points out the tendency of much criticism to take the form of “here’s the way I would have written it” …

MR: Worst advice any of you got?

LL: I was asked to move my story to Miami and put Cuban immigrants instead of Morrocan immigrants.

AS: There’s always the mean person, the nasty one who makes you go home and cry.

LF: Need for a discerning eye, the capacity to reject certain criticism when you know what you’re doing.

AS: Anything you hear from your friends, you’ll hear from editors, so it’s a valuable preview.

MJ: Best advice. Third draft, friend in a workshop told him “You don’t have a clue about women.” Advice was go and read Sula and go and read Song of Solomon afterwards. I was given Toni Morrison as medicine. Any writing problem can be solved by reading.

MR: First novels tend to be autobiographical, coming of age. Each novel feels very personal and intimate but they’re filled with reporting, history, knowledge, politics.

LL: Was really trying not to write about me, such a cliché for the first book to be roman a clef, and this next book is actually a lot more personal. As I was working I saw so many parallels between characters and myself, it’s not a coincidence – the book is about immigration and I am an immigrant.

AS: First book published is not necessarily the first book written. Many dreadful books sitting under a bed.

LF: Posits that stuttering father character in the book might be revenge on her eloquent father. Was so sad that she missed South Africa in the 1980s, and so book was set in that time period so that she could experience the journey that she missed.

MR: Actual first book written?

LF: Yes. Was a bull about getting it published.

LL: A partial about a Moroccan grad student – got bored with it after page 100.

MR: How does it feel going into real book two?

LL: It does not get easier … very sobering realization … gets harder. New book is joyful experience but it’s excruciating to write it. But rewarding moments, the highs are so high.

MJ: If you write with too many expectations, you’re going to write a book about expectations. Forever sequels.

AS: Has shifted time frame to pre-revolution Russia for her second book, and although it involves dancers, history aspect is more compelling than the day-to-day lives of dancers.

LF: Sort of bumbling around with another novel … Thought I was writing the first one all over again … Writing about South Africa again, interested in the border war at Angola/Namibia border. First drafts are just awful – I write at the top of the page “Permission to write badly” and then it all starts to fall into place.

Advantage of parentage … I never once doubted the value of sitting at a desk. Was an albatross while acting but not while writing.

MR: Asks how blogging and Moorishgirl connects to finding an audience.

LL: It’s such a different kind of writing … I wouldn’t say it’s helped at all in terms of finding a literary voice. Helps me find the kind of books I want to find and to connect with other readers, and to connect with other bloggers who enjoy reading. It’s been really great to discover writers I might not have come across otherwise. It’s essentially procrastination – few posts means I’m getting good writing done, many posts means I’m at a block.

And yes, in the questions section, someone did ask "How did you get your agents?"

April 29, 2006

Every year, the size of the Festival seems to grow. It's heartening to see what appears to be more and more people attending what is apparently the largest civic literary event in the country.

It's also exceptionally well managed. They get this one right, and every year it seems to improve, lessons learned from the year before, a constant ascent.

Despite the occasional cold stare and gossipy whisper (it is, after all, the book world) this is fundamentally a place where serious people can get together and share their love of books for the weekend. If you didn't make it out today, do make every effort to be there tomorrow ...

I'm just back from the Book Biz: The Insiders panel, where our laptop began bluescreening itself to death. I've figured it out - hardware problem - but I'm going off handwritten notes and general impressions of this panel, which included Agent Betsy Amster, Publicist Kim Dower, the legendary Larry Kirshbaum and the crowd pleaser Steve Wasserman (we mean that sincerely - he elicited round after round of applause - including ours - pillorying, variously, Oprah, Bush and the evils of publishing in general). The panel was moderated by PW editor Bridget Kinsella.

Among some of the sound bites:

LK discusses the book business' lamentable (my adjective) imitation of Hollywood in the search for The Big Book. He points out that in his day, Michener was the world's best selling author with 125,000 copies of Hawaii. He also discusses the other end of the spectrum, the indies and the struggling authors.

As he speaks, it occurs to me that there does seem to be a parallel hear between the explosion of the gap between the richest and the poorest Americans, and the gap between the blockbuster books and the the rest of the pack ...

BK and KD agree that writing is no longer enough - one must have a "platform" (that is, a source of interest in the writer beyond the work itself).

SW discusses the challenge of cutting through the noise of our culture to get authors heard. In his opening statement, he references Melville, Kafka, Koestler and van Gogh, anointing them "the worthy dead"

KD infuriates me with her nitwit assertion that we need to look at books as products or entertainment, and she focuses on the selling of the author. Let me be clear on this - she is the enemy. She embodies everything that's wrong with the book world today. It might be one thing if she observed this phenomenon and lamented it as an unfortunate development but perhaps necessary evil. But she wholeheartedly and passionately embraces the commodification of the book and of the author, and she makes me fearful for the future. At one point, she observes that "marketing is looked down upon," and well, if she's the typical spokesperson, it isn't hard to see why. There's not even a passing concession the artistic component of the work. Sad.

LK observes that in spite of all this, quality books do sell. He thinks it's a fallacy that a work of real literary merit won't break out. He goes on that publishing is a business of ideas, excitement, passion. He thinks the product angle isn't entirely accurate and he's clearly offering a corrective.

SW shares a fascinating anecdote about his days at Times Books when, in a meeting with his editor, he was advised he could no longer acquire the 10,000 copy books but had to, instead, look for the 40-50,000 copy title. He pointed out that this required casting about for the "sure thing" and would have resulted in Random House's passing on two gold mine titles - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Primary Colors. From there he leaps to Oprah where he castigates her for her shameful bullying of Frey, and wished that Nan Talese would have had the gumption to point the finger back at Oprah, naming her complicit in the creation of this confessional/recovery culture and reaping her own fruit.

As one might imagine, the Frey comment sparks a fact checking debate, which segues into a plagiarism discussion. Since LK was present at the acquisition of Opal Mehta, he shared some impressions ... "I was present at the acquisition ... People there loved the book ... she came in with her parents ... I felt like a principal ... We thought the book was a very engaging story ... spoke to something all parents go through these days ... getting children into the right schools ... Some people in their infinite wisdom thought the advance made sense ... There was a movie deal, a large printing, the book appeared headed for success ... she was a telegenic author."

LK went on to try to take some of the edge off the case. "She made a terrible mistake ... the pressure got to her ... We tend to go for vengeance, jealousy ... schadenfreude at those who are successful ... seems to me this has been so overblown ... She tried to apologize on TV and Katie Couric was rough on her." (TEV Note - Sounds like she's learning the lessons of Oprah Righteousness. If only, as Wasserman pointed out, our television figures exposed our political figures to the same sort of bludgeoning we hand out to our writers.)

Contrary to today's LAT article, LK does not think this case typifies all that is wrong with publishing. And he asks "Where is the empathy? Where is the forgiveness?" SW advises her to seek it from Oprah.

The session ends with SW quoting Wilde - "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."

More dispatches to follow, and don't forget this evening's Vermin on the Mount reading at 7 p.m.

First Fiction Panel consists of Kirsten Allio (Garner), Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation), Olga Grushin (The Dream Life of Sukhanov) and moderator Susan Salter Reynolds. There’s an overflow crowd lined up way past the entrance to the Fowler Museum

The volunteers are a bit overzealous here, herding the audience into specific seats. We’re cowering quietly in the background, hoping the matrons won’t break our kneecaps.

While we’re waiting for them to settle, a few words about this morning’s Building a Creative Community panel. The panelists were Carolyn See, John Baxter and Michael Walker. Richard Rayner moderated. And although the panelists were charming – Baxter is a born raconteur – time was wasted reading excerpts, which essentially left time for precisely one question before the audience questions kicked in. They also failed to address the stated theme of the proceedings – Building a Community. But, as a reflection on what community means to each, it was illuminating, and it’s interesting to note that the men saw the supportive creative community in terms of cities (Paris) and neighborhoods (Laurel Canyon), where as the panel’s lone woman spoke in terms of family.

The panel is starting up. Here we go:

SSR – These are huge … risky books … have not seen anything like them in 15 years of reviewing … Writers are invited to read excerpts. Excerpts are all too long, and too much panel time is taken up with them. Now, she asks them how they became writers, who their mentors were, the moment they gained confidence to write.

UI: With each new thing you start, you search for the confidence to go on because each thing is different … Wrote book in his last year of college and worked with Jamaica Kinkcaid for a year … Very harsh feedback sometimes but it allows you to hone your skills. … I don’t really know if I am a writer yet … you have to write more than one book.

KA: (sighs heavily) Becoming a writer? (sighs) From childhood I wanted to be something in the arts, translating reality into something less real. Was cellist, dancer, had that one special professor in college who helped her along. Feels it’s a funny juncture after the first book as it was all poured into it. Having children forces her to economize and she works much better.

OG: Always known, started at four. Never thought of it as a profession, tried other things, too. Hardest transition was trying to get her writing published, which only happened seven years ago … no mentors, no writing classes, nothing, just one ten-dollar book on getting published which told you to double-space your manuscript.

SSR: So none of you are in it for the money?

ALL: Laughs …

SSR: Asks about experience in publishing, shopping the book, the editing process, how were first novelists treated? Pressure to compromise?

UI: Process was very streamlined. Wrote book as senior thesis, had to be in pretty good shape or I wasn’t go to graduate. Kinkcaid passed it to her agent, who took it on. Little editing required by the end. Difference between thesis and book is about a paragraph.

KA: Oh … you lucky … Got an MFA at Brown and got an agent that way, did not work out, fired him, started all over again … Coffee House Press actually does read the slush pile and that’s how Garner got published. Editing process did not change much at all. Agents were interested in making it more mainstream, taking out all the questions, putting in only answers … not at all palatable.

OG: Did everything by the book, finished the novel, bought another book on how to find an agent, made a list of agents based on their client list, expected to go indie press route. Some agents wanted rewrites, too experimental. Refused to make changes. Agent ultimately signed her quickly, Puttnam required very little editing. British editor had more edits for the UK market – trouser for pants – but basically pretty easy.

SSR: They used to tell us write what you know. How much did each of you follow that advice?

UI: I think it should be write about what you want to know. I grew up in Washington DC. So it’s not a book about anything that happened to me. It does contain elements of people and places I know, and I elements I knew nothing about until I did my research … tried to understand how people deal with violence.

KA: For me, it’s really important to write about what I know… to try to translate this known and felt world … it just feels to me like a translation process. What was most fun was the surprise that it became a historical novel … it started out contemporary. Wanted to find a more universal and mythical voice that could hold its own next to all the nature writing in the book. I like to write more than I like to read, so research is hard.

OG: I can imagine myself writing about something I know nothing about. It’s not autobiographical but I wanted to get the Russia of my childhood out of the way first. I had to do some research … story goes back 50 years to the 1930s … some things that I had to research. Was important to me to recreate the atmosphere of what I remembered and what I loved for the first book.

SSR: Relationships with your readers. Suddenly, there are people who think they know you Have you thought about how to deal with your readers?

UI: Thank you guys for reading. Once you finish the work you can’t expect someone reading it to think what you were thinking. Think about reading Faulker, you have no connection with the time and place but there’s something in the work that affects the reader. That’s something special to be able to offer. Have had some interesting experiences with readers – moments that make it completely worth it, your back changed the way I thought, or moments when people come up and say, Wow, I really didn’t like that.

KA: I would echo that once it’s out of my hands it’s yours. I’ve had lots of frustrated readers who wanted the answers or the solutions and I steadfastly refused to give it because I like the sense of asking questions instead of providing answers. It’s also very stark and severe and withholding and I’ve taken some refuge in that. I love to hear what people think about it, though.

OG: I basically wrote the sort of thing I would like to read. My first reader was my husband who doesn’t like what I like to read, so that was a sobering experience. Various ways of interpreting the ending and I like that, I like that people have different opinions. For the second book, the abstract ideal reader becomes more concrete. Nothing better than hearing from a person who read it, not even reviews.

SSR: Second book?

UI: Kinkcaid advised him upon finishing to sit back and relax and not try to get something else finished right away. Has been working on and off for two years but largely writing to write, in order to know what one wants to write about before writing.

KA: Deep into a second novel about homesickness, trying to be contemporary. Also have about 10 or 12 short stories going. But I’m not in a rush.

OG: Also working on a second novel. It’s coming along, not as quickly as hoped but no rush.

April 28, 2006

8:05 p.m. Blogging live (more or less) from the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, a pleasantly cool Friday evening in Westwood. Walking up to Royce Hall, I happened to pass by as Joan Didion emerged from her town car. She is every bit the frail, petite wisp of legend. I also had the pleasure of bumping into my good pal Mr. Steve Wasserman, present in his famed seersucker. He received me graciously, as ever, and inquired after my cycling results, noting that I had been competing in the “Old Guys” category …

I’ve rendezvoused with Laila and her husband, and now we’ve settled in for the Book Awards ceremony. Presenters will include Dana Gioia, David Ulin and Adam Gopnik. We’ll be paying special attention when LBC nominee Garner comes up in the First Ficion category. In the fiction category, we think Veronica has a good chance, as L.A. loves its tales of drugs and prostitution. More anon.

8:11 p.m. We’re being treated to a multimedia presentation on the history of the Los Angeles Times. It’s predictably self-congratulatory but the audience does seem to enjoy it. The Book Awards are 26 years old as of this evening.

8:16 p.m. So odd to watch Turan, knowing that voice I know so well from NPR. He’s introducing the judges reading down a fairly long category by category list. Too many names for a slow typist like me to catch. Now he introduces NEA chairman Dana Gioia, who has just called himself a “working class Latin kid from L.A.” Interestingly, his cultural references so far have been film – Quentin Tarrantino and Fritz Lang. But now he’s reminiscing quite pleasantly about his reading youth at Hawthorne Public Library. Although in the end, like too many others, he’s now marching down the path of Los Angeles Insecurity – truly, folks, when oh when oh when will this city stop feeling it necessary to excuse itself? Vaguely disappointing. Crowing about how Californians read more than New Yorkers. It’s unseemly stuff.

8:28 p.m. First up the science and technology awards, announced by Robert Lee Hoates. He’s just taken a nice firm whack at the anti-science stance of the religious right. Applause dots the room, led by yours truly. The winner is … Diana Preston for Before the Fallout.

So, they’ve got one of these women in a sexy black dress meeting the winners, and I just have to wonder why is there always a hot babe? You never see a handsome, tuxedoed square jawed type. Now, don’t misinterpret my thoughts here – it just seems an oddly retrograde and sexist choice for something as supposedly enlightened as a literary award, that’s all. Hey, Ulin, who's to blame for this?

8:35 p.m. Dana Goodyear takes the stage to give the poetry award. The winner is … Jack Gilbert for Refusing Heaven. They have an audiotape of Gilbert reading “A Brief for the Defense.” It’s a lovely, lovely poem. They got this one right … He isn’t here to accept the award.

8:45 p.m. Ronald Brownstein takes the stage to give the current interest award. Updike’s art book is among the nods … The winner is … Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid. He’s on assignment in the Middle East with the Washington Post and accepts via taped statement.

8:51 p.m. Time for the Art Seidenbaum First Fiction Award. David Ulin is the presenter. Nice to see him taking the center stage, his first festival appearance since becoming editor of the LATBR. And the winner is … Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala. A brief speech in which he uses “hopefully” incorrectly … (Laila called this win out in the lobby before the show.)

8:57 p.m. Mary Higgins Clark takes the stage to award the Mystery/Thriller award. The winner is … Robert Littell for Legends. He’s not present but his surrogate is reading the thanks off of her hand, which is apparently where she jotted down the names. She’s talking way too long, telling a story about Littell from the 1960s … it’s a long rambling affair and I’m wishing for Oscar music to come up right now. I remember this woman, she was at David Kipen’s Duttons reading and spent a similar amount of time talking then, too …

9:06 p.m. OK, it’s the history category, announced by Leo Brody, and I’m pulling hard for Tony Judt’s magisterial Postwar … And the award goes to Adam Hocschild for Bury the Chains.

9:12 p.m. Luis J. Rodriguez takes the stage to give the fiction award. It’s a somewhat strange category this year, with the likes of Nick Hornby up against E.L. Doctorow. Mary Gaitskill is nominated as well, as are Gabriel Garcia Marquez (think he’ll show – c’mon guys, what’s this one all about?) and Haruki Murakami. Not much in the way of hometown fiction – why not nominate Updike and Roth while you’re at it. Just not that interesting, I think – the first fiction list is considerably more compelling. The award goes to Garcia Marquez. Surprise – he couldn’t make it. His son, though, is here and he’s giving a funny and charming talk, recounting his father’s request that he come and accept the award. “How long do you have to talk?” Father asks. “Oh, I don’t know they said be brief – a minute or two.” Silence and a sigh. “An eternity.”

9:21 p.m. Adam Gopnik is up now to give the Young Adult fiction award. Wow. He has a great photographer – he looks like a nervous little bird up there. And the winner is Per Nilsson for You and You and You. Translated from the Swedish – Mr. Orthofer would love this. He’s talking about the absence of titles being translated into Swedish, expressing frustration at the dearth of international titles available to him.

9:28 p.m. I’m fading and it’s Biography time. Let’s move it along, folks, we old types need our sleep. So the winner is Matisse the Master by Hilary Spurling, accepting by videotape. It’s a lovely speech describing Matisse’s love for American in general and California in particular.

9:38 p.m. Last award, the Robert Kirsch Award, their version of the Thalberg. We’re getting a video presentation on winner Joan Didion. She’s getting a well-deserved standing ovation. “I get a prize is from a paper I still read every morning … in New York.” It’s a brief but heartfelt speech, no more than three minutes and she’s gone. And that, my friends, is that. We’re logging out for the night and we’ll be back with Festival dispatches tomorrow.

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

RECOMMENDED

This slim volume by the president and founder of the Nexus Institute, a European-based humanist think-tank, stands as the most stirring redoubt against the ascendant forces of know-nothingness that we've come across in a long time. A full-throated, unapologetic defense of the virtues of Western Civ – in which "elite" is not and never should be a dirty word – this inspiring exploration of high art and high ideals is divided into three sections: The first looks at the life of Riemen's great hero Thomas Mann as a model for the examined life. The second imagines a series of conversations from turning points in European intellectual history, populated with the likes of Socrates, Nietzsche and others. The final section, "Be Brave," is nothing less than an exhortation to dig deep, especially in times of risk. The notion of nobility of the spirit might strike some modern ears as quaint but it seems more desperately necessary than ever before, and there are worse ways to read the accessible Nobility of Spirit than as a crash refresher in the Great Thinkers, free of academic jargon and cant. As a meditation on what is at stake when the pursuit of high ideals is elbowed aside by the pursuit of fleeting material gain, however, Nobility of Spirit might well be the most prescient book we've yet read on what's at stake in the current election cycle and in the developing global situation. Agree or disagree with Riemen's profound, ambitious and high-minded plea, you will be thinking about his words for a long time. It's been ages since a work of non-fiction moved us this way. Read it. Discuss it. Argue about it.

With rave reviews from James Wood, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner, it might not seem like we need to tell you to drop everything and go read Netherland, but we are telling you, and here's why: The way book coverage works these days, everyone talks about the same book for about two or three weeks, and then they move on and the book is more or less forgotten. Whereas a berth here in the Recommended sidebar keeps noteworthy titles in view for a good, long time, which is the sort of sustained attention this marvelous novel deserves. A Gatsby-like meditation on exclusion and otherness, it's an unforgettable New York story in which the post 9/11 lives of Hans, a Dutch banker estranged from his English wife, and Chuck Ramkissoon, a mysterious cricket entrepreneur, intertwine. The New York City of the immigrant margins is unforgettably invoked in gorgeous, precise prose, and the novel's luminous conclusion is a radiant beacon illuminating one of our essential questions, the question of belonging. Our strongest possible recommendation.

"History," wrote Henry James in a 1910 letter to his amanuensis Theodora Bosanquet, "is strangely written." This casual aside could easily serve as the epigraph of Cynthia Ozick's superb new collection Dictation, which concerns itself with lost worlds evoked by languages -- languages which separate and obscure as readily as they bind. It can be risky to look for connective tissue between stories written years apart and published in magazines ranging from The Conradian to The New Yorker. But themes of deception, posterity, and above all, the glory of language -- at once malleable and intractable -- knit together this quartet, recasting the whole as the harmonious product of Ozick's formidable talent. Read the entire review here

Now, on the one hand, you scarcely need us to alert you to the existence of a new J.M. Coetzee novel, or even to have us tell you it's worth reading. But we can tell you - we insist on telling you that Diary of a Bad Year is a triumph, easily Coetzee's most affecting and fully wrought work since Disgrace. Formally inventive, the book intertwines two narratives with the author's own Strong Opinions, a series of seemingly discrete philosophical and political essays. The cumulative effect of this strange trio is deeply moving and thought provoking. It's increasingly rare in this thoroughly post-post-modern age to raise the kind of questions in fiction Coetzee handles so masterfully - right down to what is it, exactly, that we expect (or need) from our novels. It's telling that, for all of his serious pronouncements on subjects ranging from censorship to pedophilia to the use of torture, it's finally a few pages from The Brothers Karamazov that brings him to tears. Moving, wise and - how's this for a surprise - funny and lightly self-mocking, Diary of a Bad Year might well be the book of the year and Coetzee is surely our essential novelist. We haven't stopped thinking about it since we set it down.

David Leavitt's magnificent new novel tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the British mathematician G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, mathematical autodidact and prodigy who had been working as a clerk in Madras, and who would turn out to be one of the great mathematical minds of the century. Ramanujan reluctantly joined Hardy in England - a move that would ultimately prove to his detriment - and the men set to work on proving the Riemann Hypothesis, one of mathematics' great unsolved problems. The Indian Clerk, an epic and elegant work which spans continents and decades, encompasses a World War, and boasts a cast of characters that includes Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lytton Strachey. Leavitt renders the complex mathematics in a manner that resonates emotionally as well as intellectually, and writes with crystalline elegance. The metaphor of the prime number – divisible only by one and itself – is beautifully apt for this tale of these two isolated geniuses. Leavitt's control of this dense, sprawling material is impressive – astonishing, at times – and yet despite its scope, he keeps us focused on his great themes of unknowability and identity. The Indian Clerk might be set in the past but it doesn't resemble most so-called "historical fiction." Rather, it's an ageless meditation on the quests for knowledge and for the self – and how frequently the two are intertwined – that is, finally, as timeless as the music of the primes. (View our full week of coverage here.)

Joshua Ferris' warm and funny debut novel is an antidote to the sneering likes of The Office and Max Barry's Company. Treating his characters with both affection and respect, Ferris takes us into a Chicago ad agency at the onset of the dot-bomb. Careers are in jeopardy, nerves are frayed and petty turf wars are fought. But there are bigger stakes in the balance, and Ferris' weirdly indeterminate point of view that's mostly first person plural, underscores the shared humanity of everyone who has ever had to sit behind a desk. It's a luminous, affecting debut and you can read the first chapter right here.

Coming to these shores at last, John Banville's thriller, written under the nom de plume Benjamin Black, has drawn rave reviews across the pond since it first appeared last October. Those who feared Banville might turn in an overly literary effort needn't worry. Influenced by Simenon's romans durs (hard stories), Banville unspools a dark mystery set in 1950s Dublin concerning itself with, among other things, the church's trade in orphans. At the heart of the book is the coroner Quirke, a Banvillean creation on par with Alex Cleave and Freddie Montgomery. Dublin is rendered with a damp, creaky specificity – you can almost taste the whisky.

Scanning our Recommended selections, one might conclude we're addicted to interviews, and one would be correct. If author interviews are like crack to us, then the Paris Review author interviews must surely be the gold standard of crack (a comparison Plimpton might not have embraced). The newly issued The Paris Review Interviews, Volume I (Picador) rolls out the heavy hitters. Who can possibly turn away from the likes of Saul Bellow, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Luis Borges, Dorothy Parker, Robert Gottlieb and others? The interviews are formal and thoughtful but never dry and can replace any dozen "how-to" books on writing. What can be more comforting than hearing Bellow, answering a question on preparations and conception, admit "Well, I don't know exactly how it's done.” The best part of this collection? The "Volume I" in the title, with its promise of more volumes to come.

The best short story collection we've read since ... well, certainly since we've started this blog. And we might even say "ever" if Dubliners didn't cast such a long shadow. The short story is not our preferred form but D'Ambrosio's eight brilliant stories are almost enough to convert us. Defy the conventional wisdom that short story collections don't sell and treat yourself to this marvel. (We're especially partial, naturally, to "Screenwriter".)

What would you do if the woman who’d left you high and dry ten years ago called out of the blue to invite you to a party without any further explanation? If you’re French, you’d probably spend a lot of time pondering the Deeper Significance Of It All, which is exactly what Grégoire Bouillier does for the 120 hilarious pages of The Mystery Guest. This slim, witty memoir follows Bouillier through the party from hell, and is a case study in Gallic self-abasement. Before it’s all done, you’ll set fire to any turtleneck hanging in your closet and think twice before buying an expensive Bordeaux as a gift. But fear not – just when it seems that all is, indeed, random and pointless and there is no Deeper Significance, salvation arrives in the unlikely form of Virginia Woolf, and the tale ends on a note of unforced optimism. Parfait.

When George Ticknor's Life of William Hickling Prescott was published in 1864, it received rapturous notices, and reviewers were quick to point out that the long-standing friendship between Prescott and Ticknor made the latter an ideal Boswell. Sheila Heti has pulled this obscure leaf from the literary archives and fashioned a mordantly funny anti-history; a pungent and hilarious study of bitterness and promise unfulfilled. As a fretful Ticknor navigates his way through the rain-soaked streets of Boston to Prescott's house ("But I am not a late man. I hate to be late."), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized, always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back. Heti seamlessly inhabits Ticknor's fussy 19th-century diction with a feat of virtuoso ventriloquism that puts one in mind of The Remains of the Day. Heti's Ticknor would be insufferable if he weren't so funny, and in the end, the black humor brings a leavening poignancy to this brief tale. But don't let the size fool you — this 109-page first novel is small but scarcely slight; it is as dense and textured as a truffle.

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you and yes, we are recommending a Believer product. Twenty-three interviews (a third presented for the first time) pairing the likes of Zadie Smith with Ian McEwan, Jonathan Lethem with Paul Auster, Edward P. Jones and ZZ Packer, and Adam Thirwell with Tom Stoppard make this collection a must-read. Lifted out of the context of some of the magazine's worst twee excesses, the interviews stand admirably on their own as largely thoughtful dialogues on craft. A handful of interviewers seem more interested in themselves than in their subjects but in the main this collection will prove irresistible to writers of any stripe - struggling or established - and to readers seeking a window into the creative process.

John Banville's latest novel returns him to the Booker Prize shortlist for the first time since 1989's The Book of Evidence. In The Sea, we find Banville in transition, moving from the icy, restrained narrators of The Untouchable, Eclipse and Shroud toward warmer climes. Max Morden has returned to the vacation spot of his youth as he grieves the death of his wife. Remembering his first, fatal love, Morden works to reconcile himself to his loss. Banville's trademark linguistic virtuosity is everpresent but some of the chilly control is relinquished and Max mourns and rages in ways that mark a new direction for Banville - and there's at least one great twist which you'll never see coming. Given the politicized nature of the British literary scene, Banville's shot at the prize might be hobbled by his controversial McEwan review but we're rooting for our longtime favorite to go all the way at last. UPDATE: Our man won!

We've been fans of Booker Prize winner John Berger for ages, and we're delighted to have received an early copy of his latest work, Here is Where We Meet. In this lovely, elliptical, melancholy "fictional memoir," Berger traverses European cities from Libson to Geneva to Islington, conversing with shades from his past – He encounters his dead mother on a Lisbon tram, a beloved mentor in a Krakow market. Along the way, we're treated to marvelous and occasionally heart-rending glimpses of an extraordinary life, a lyrical elegy to the 20th century from a man who - in his eighth decade - remains committed to his political beliefs and almost childlike in his openness to people, places and experiences. There's no conventional narrative here, and those seeking plot are advised to look elsewhere. But Here is Where We Meet offers a wise, moving and poetic look at the life of an artist traversing the European century from a novelist whose talent remains undimmed in his twilight years.

In his recent TEV guest review of Home Land, Jim Ruland called Sam Lipsyte the "funniest writer of his generation," and we're quite inclined to agree. We tore through Home Land in two joyful sittings and can't remember the last time we've laughed so hard. Lipsyte's constellation of oddly sympathetic losers is rendered with a sparkling, inspired prose style that's sent us off in search of all his prior work. In Lewis Miner's (a.k.a Teabag) woeful epistolary dispatches to his high school alumni newsletter ("I did not pan out."), we find an anti-hero for the age. Highly, highly recommended.

SECOND LOOK

Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel is the tale of Florence Green, a widow who seeks, in the late 1950s, to bring a bookstore to an isolated British town, encountering all manner of obstacles, including incompetent builders, vindictive gentry, small minded bankers, an irritable poltergeist, but, above all, a town that might not, in fact, want a bookshop. Fitzgerald's prose is spare but evocative – there's no wasted effort and her work reminds one of Hemingway's dictum that every word should fight for its right to be on the page. Florence is an engaging creation, stubbornly committed to her plan even as uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the enterprise gnaws at her. But The Bookshop concerns itself, finally, with the astonishing vindictiveness of which provincials are capable, and, as so much English fiction must, it grapples with the inevitabilities of class. It's a dense marvel at 123 pages, a book you won't want to – or be able to – rush through.

Tim Krabbé's superb 1978 memoir-cum-novel is the single best book we've read about cycling, a book that will come closer to bringing you inside a grueling road race than anything else out there. A kilometer-by-kilometer look at just what is required to endure some of the most grueling terrain in the world, Krabbé explains the tactics, the choices and – above all – the grinding, endless, excruciating pain that every cyclist faces and makes it heart-pounding rather than expository or tedious. No writer has better captured both the agony and the determination to ride through the agony. He's an elegant stylist (ably served by Sam Garrett's fine translation) and The Rider manages to be that rarest hybrid – an authentic, accurate book about cycling that's a pleasure to read. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me."